Justice Goes To Washington DC

The long awaited trip to Washington DC to attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference has finally come and gone.  Justice is safely tucked in his bed this morning, and he is still sleeping.  That fact alone tells me how utterly exhausted he is.  He is usually awake at somewhere around 5AM, give or take a few minutes.  For him to still be sleeping at 7AM is a rare thing.  He was so exhausted when I picked him up he was nearly delirious.  But he had a wonderful time.

With all the mixed emotions I had about sending him on this trip, I am really glad that we did.  He had an absolutely amazing time.  The same reasons we didn't want to send him were the reasons we are glad that we did.  

-He was alone, meaning this wasn't a school trip with people he knew.  This forced him out of his comfort zone and he met several new friends.  He's already talked to a few since he's been back.  He's going to scout camp next week, but that's completely different.  He knows everybody there, leaders and fellow scouts.  

-He was flying by himself.  Given his anxiety, that could have been horrible.  I had visions of a crying boy that couldn't find his connecting gate and was too scared to ask for help.  I didn't give him enough credit, he handled the airport like a pro. 

-He hadn't ever been away from us before.  He NEEDED to be away from us to boost his confidence.

-He has anxiety.  Thankfully, I think that will be less of a problem now.  Another confidence booster.  

-He is not good with "loose money", as we learned from his St. Louis trip.  He was great with his money this time.  Thankfully he learns from his mistakes.  

There were a thousand things that could have gone wrong during this trip.  None of them did.  It was a perfect experience for him and he handled it very well.  He is indeed growing up, yay for Justice. 

He had only been on an airplane once before this trip.  He was about five or six and he flew with his Dad.  This was much different.  Not only was he flying alone, but he was flying as an adult (with no help from the airlines) and he had a layover.  The return trip was worse, he had to actually hop on a train to go to a completely different terminal to catch his connecting flight.  And he did it, with no problems.  He didn't have to ask for help, just figured it out on his own.  No anxiety, no worries.  As a matter of fact, he did such a great job with his flights that I didn't even go into the airport last night to pick him up.  He went to baggage claim, got his luggage, and met me out front on the sidewalk.  I swooped in and picked him up and that was it.  I was impressed.  People constantly asked me throughout the week whether or not I was a wreck.  And you know, I wasn't.  I wasn't even a wreck on his travel days.  

This is the schedule, just to give you an idea of how he spent his week.

He was busy.  Too busy to worry about being homesick.  Too busy to worry about his anxiety.  And too tired at night to worry about anything but sleeping.  

And let's talk about money for a second.  I put twenty dollars per envelope into six envelopes.  I labeled the envelopes with the days of the week he was gone.  

He was only allowed to spend the money from that days envelope and when it was gone, it was gone.  The conference folks collected an additional 40 dollars from each kid (I had that in a separate envelope already marked) so each kid would have enough money to check their luggage and eat on the trip home.  Good thinking on their part.  Justice actually came home with money leftover.  He was very careful with his money and we had no issues.  Granted, I made it fairly easy for him and so did the trip folks since all his meals were paid for, but he stuck to the plan and no 15 dollar sodas were purchased.  I was really glad, I've been worried sick about how that would all pan out.  

There was also a dress code.  They had to dress business casual the whole week.  Dress slacks, polo shirts and dress shoes.  That's pretty much how he would prefer to dress anyway so he was excited about that, too.

He has some horrible pictures of his trip on the photo stream, and I'm going to let him post those himself.  Because I can't really explain the fifteen photos of his finger that I see with as much detail as he can.  Ha.  

In summary, if you are the parent of a nerdy kid that loves national history, thinks school is fun and enjoys being in positions of leadership, then this trip is worth every single penny.  I would do it again for him in a minute, but you can clearly see by the schedule that some kids might not think this was a fun way to spend a week in the summer.  

Next stop, scout camp.